


i rest my head at night, content

by AbigailKinney4life



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angry Jaskier | Dandelion, Angst, Blow Jobs, Bottom Jaskier | Dandelion, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming Untouched, Did I Mention Angst?, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, Eventual Smut, First Time, Fix-It, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Being an Idiot, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, It's really not that bad, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Non-Graphic Violence, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, Slow Burn, Top Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Torture, mentioning angst again because I really cannot stress the amount of angst in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:00:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23862676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbigailKinney4life/pseuds/AbigailKinney4life
Summary: Jaskierhateshim.It was only a matter of time.Geraskier Fixit Fic
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 71
Kudos: 786
Collections: Interesting Character and/or Interesting Relationship Development





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I was channelling my inner Jane Austen when I wrote this.  
> The title is a reference to 'Marbles', by Joey and Madeleine's INCREDIBLE band The Amazing Devil which, if you haven't checked out already, you need to do like, now.  
> *slaps fic* this bad boy can fit so many TAD references it it.

It had almost been a year since Geralt had left Jaskier atop the mountain, and the witcher had been alone ever since.

He’d been running from his destiny, from everything, really.

Ever since that day, the day he’d lost everything, he felt half of himself, like he’d been robbed of more than the only woman he’d ever loved, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. Because of that, the last few months had gone by in a haze. He hadn’t been sleeping. Every time he closed his eyes, all he saw was Yennefer’s disappointed face looking back at him.

Instead, he’d just been taking job after job until he was so exhausted he couldn’t think anymore and he passed out, quite literally.

He hadn’t seen Yen since, she did not want to be found. Nor had he seen or heard anything regarding Jaskier – until now.

The witcher found himself in the northern town of Tarrin. He’d been contracted by the mayor to hunt down and kill a werewolf that had been stalking the town on every full moon for the last three months.

The moon would be at its highest for the next month this very night and the beast, being nocturnal, would not come out until them. So Geralt could do nothing until nightfall.

The town of Tarrin was in uproar from things un-werewolf-related, it seemed. The mayor’s eldest son was to marry that morning and the mayor was hosting a large banquet in his town house afterwards for the entire town in celebration.

Geralt had, of course, tried to urge him to postpone and tell him that it would be safer for the villagers to be inside until the werewolf was dealt with.

The mayor, old and kindly, had insisted that as long as his people were inside before the moon rose, there would be no danger and Geralt was forced to concede.

The mayor had, unfortunately, also insisted that Geralt himself attend. Geralt had tried to politely decline but a combination of being bored, free booze and the mayor’s courteous nature earning his respect had forced his hand.

Which was how Geralt found himself at a human banquet. He couldn’t help the tremor that ran through his body from the memory of the last banquet he’d been dragged along to, and exactly what had happened there. He ardently wished no hedgehogs had been invited to this one.

Another difference was that, this time, he wasn’t pretending to be someone he wasn’t. Clad entirely in black, but with the sense to leave his armour and swords with the servants, there was no mistaking Geralt for anything other than the witcher that he was.

The banquet hall in the mayor’s, frankly massive, town house was separated from the entrance foyer by a short corridor and a set of elaborately engraved oak doors. Tonight, those doors were wide open to connect the two rooms. But it did allow Geralt to discreetly hide in the short corridor and get his bearings on the banquet hall inside before he entered.

From the view afforded to him by the short corridor, the wedding banquet was a large but elegant affair. There were long tables of food and drink, buxom women carrying flagons of ale on trays and lords and ladies dressed beautifully. Everyone was eating, dancing and making merry.

Geralt instantly felt out of place but was too used to it to let it bother him. Still, he hovered in the doorway for longer than necessary.

Then there it was. The tell-tale, familiar sound of lute-playing drifting towards his trained ears. He blinked. For a moment, he wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not. So used had he gotten to the bards incessant, soporific playing that the witcher often imagined it fluttering behind him despite the fact the bard himself was nowhere to be found. He always rolled his eyes when that happened. Trust Jaskier to find ways to annoy him when he wasn’t even there.

A soft, melodious voice accompanied the lute music and Geralt had to concede. Jaskier was here. His shoulders automatically lost some of their tension.

Still, he tried to think – how long had it been – maybe a year? He shook his head. Over the years, he and Jaskier had been parted for much longer than that when their lives stopped them travelling together. Jaskier couldn’t still be mad at him, could he? He knew Geralt was hot-headed, and he must have known he hadn’t really meant what he said. In fact, he’d probably forgotten about the witcher’s harsh words the second he was down the mountain and some pretty thing had caught his eye.

Geralt would never admit it out loud, but he’d been lonely since losing Yen and running from his child surprise, so he somewhat, _somewhat_ looked forward to seeing the bard. He was probably the only person in the world who didn’t want to puke at the sight of him.

He entered, immediately catching sight of the mayor sat at the front of the hall with his son and his son’s new bride sat by his side. He raised his cup to Geralt and Geralt nodded back before surveying the rest of the room out of habit. Couples were dancing to the jaunty tune Jaskier was playing and there the bard was, at the front, lute in hand, surrounded by various musicians following his lead. He was grinning and weaving in and out of the dancers, playing to the crowd, and being followed by a gaggle of women who seemed enthralled by his very presence. He hadn’t changed that much, then.

Except, he had. He looked _different_. His clothes were a dark grey rather than the lavish colours he normally wore, his hair was slightly longer and he was a little unshaven. He hadn’t grown a beard, but had dark, unstyled stubble from not shaving. He looked older – Geralt realised. The entire scene was a far-cry from the wide-eyed eighteen-year-old he’d met in Posada getting booed by the crowd.

The banquet hushed a little when Geralt entered as people began to notice the witcher. Some of the dancers halted and looked at him. The women following Jaskier turned from him to Geralt and Jaskier, wondering what had stolen their attentions, turned too.

Their eyes met across the crowded room.

Jaskier could probably barely make him out but Geralt’s heightened eyesight could see him clearly. His fingers faulted on the lute strings and his eyes slackened. It was one of those looks where the soul was peaking out through the eyes. It surprised Geralt. It almost felt like the split-second lasted an eternity before Jaskier turned from him and carried on playing, a smile on his face, as if he hadn’t seen him at all. The bard easily recaptured the attentions of the women fawning over him – the smile was not for him.

Geralt grunted and made a beeline for a table full of beer and grabbed himself a drink, not bothering to sit down. He’d almost finished the mug when a barmaid holding a tray and wearing a tight corset was by his side refilling it for him. Her blonde hair was tied in an elegant knot and her bright blue eyes were glittering as she smiled at him.

“Thank you.” He said gruffly, taking another swig.

But she wasn’t moving away. “It’s, err, not every day we get a witcher in town.” She said, hugging her tray to her chest shyly.

Geralt didn’t answer.

“Is there a monster here?” She asked.

His eyes met hers. She was still smiling.

“A werewolf.” He muttered.

Surprise crossed her face. “Oh, gods above, are we in danger?”

“I don’t think so.”

“No, no of course not, you’re here. You’ll protect us.”

Geralt fully turned to her then. One hand was fiddling with an errant blonde strand falling over her face. Okay, she was definitely giving him the eye.

“So, I suppose werewolves only come out with the full moon?” She asked.

“That’s right.” Geralt replied, taking another swig of his drink.

“So, you’ve got some time on your hands?”

His hand faltered, his cup hovering in the air. It would be a nice way to pass the time, and to get some errant thoughts out of his traitorous mind.

Jaskier sidled into view behind her, bending down and softly playing to a beautiful woman who was sat down and blushing at him. Geralt’s eyes drifted to him but Jaskier didn’t look back.

“Thanks, but no thanks.” He said distractedly.

Her smile fell. He didn’t even notice her leave.

After a while, the band took a break. Jaskier bowed deeply to the crowd and made his way over to the table of ale where Geralt still stood. But he didn’t come up to Geralt. Instead, he stood a few feet away and took a long gulp from a cup. He was out of breath and had sweat prickling on his forehead.

So, he was still upset, then.

Geralt watched him unashamedly. There was no way Jaskier couldn’t have known Geralt was looking at him, even though he didn’t return the gaze.

Robbed of Jaskier’s eyes, Geralt instead inspected the new stubble grazing his jaw and the taut, masculine lines of his neck as he turned his face away from him. There was something subdued in him somehow and the smell coming off of him was different. Something had changed him.

Geralt’s jaw set. He’d had enough of the bard’s bratty behaviour.

“Jaskier.” He growled; voice lower than he was expecting.

“Geralt.” Jaskier returned immediately, amiably, not looking up from his drink. “I didn’t know you were in town.”

Geralt stilled, floored by the sudden change in tact. So, Jaskier wasn’t mad at him? Had he thought about telling his face?

“There’s a werewolf.” He said, somewhat dumbly.

“Hmm, then I imagine you’re the best for the job.” Jaskier was already looking away, back at the group of ladies waving at him. No, he wasn’t mad at Geralt, just sort of…dismissive. It hurt. Geralt hadn’t expected it to hurt.

He was used to being the centre of the bards world. No matter how long they’d been apart, whenever Jaskier saw him, his face lit up and he fell in love with him all over again. As he did with everyone, of course. Geralt shook his head, that was an odd thing to think.

Geralt grunted softly. All he wanted was for the bard to finally grow tired of him and leave him be. And it had finally happened.

He was glad. Except he wasn’t.

Still – “Don’t go outside after dark tonight, Jaskier. It’s not safe.”

Jaskier laughed spitefully into his drink. “I think I’m more than capable of taking care of myself, thank you very much.” His voice was soft, that northern twang to his words, but the implication was evident. _Stay away from me, Geralt, I don’t need you_.

Geralt bit back a remark. Jaskier still wasn’t looking at him.

Then he was gone, back to his band and the women waiting for him.

Geralt just stood there, with no idea how to process what the hell had just happened. _Some_ _friend_ , his brain scoffed. But he was still watching him.

Jaskier had taken one of the women, petite with long blonde hair, into his arms and they met in a kiss. Geralt saw the pink flash of the bard’s tongue as it sunk into her willing mouth. He turned away.

He couldn’t reconcile the decadent, debauched image in front of him with the look of, well, _heartbreak_ on Jaskier’s face the last time he’d seen him on that mountain.

He cursed himself. He shouldn’t have come. He shouldn’t have tried to talk to him.

Humans were fickle things with strange emotions. At least Yen had told him to fuck off and left him, but Jaskier, for some reason was still being civil with him even if he couldn’t look at him.

Geralt had lived among humans for many years but he didn’t think he’d ever understand them.

Instead, he left, alone.

…

Night fell and Geralt stood in the deserted town square.

He turned his eyes, black as pitch, upwards to the full moon shining down on him. He growled softly, feeling the dark blood skewering his cheeks and the surge coursing through his body that numbed and fortified every muscle against the onslaught that was sure to come.

His mind was finally free from the petty trivial concerns that plagued his waking hours and he existed purely in this moment to do exactly as he was bred to do: kill monsters.

He exhaled; the cool night air twisted in steam-spirals from his nostrils like a bull. His ears perked like a wild cat or a wolf, listening.

_There it was._ Its claws dug viciously into a thatched rooftop as it stretched its malformed body, its fur-covered vellum, on its hind legs and bayed at the moon.

Geralt didn’t unsheathe his silver sword. No need to. He stalked unseen, as black as the night around him, to the building and planted his feet on the front windowsill. He used the slates of wood of the structure to nimbly scale up until he landed silently on the thatched roof in a crouch, staring at the werewolf’s back.

Geralt rose to his full height, keeping his dark eyes trained on the beast. His senses were heightened now beyond their normal enhanced state. He could see each individual strand of fur on its back. He could smell the hunger and the rage and the _lust_ reeking from its pores in droves. He could hear its beating heart stuttering erratically in its chest. It was but a temporary sound.

He unsheathed his sword then and the shrill clang of metal against leather rang out in the silent night. The wolf’s ears pricked up before its muzzle turned to Geralt. Those yellow eyes, so like his own, narrowed in anger at the sight of him and its maw erupted into a battle cry of spittle and teeth and it was charging at him.

Geralt ducked out of the way and slipped underneath the wolf’s long legs in a crouch as it jumped over him. He sent his sword upward and the tip scraped across the beast’s flank, carving the meat like a butcher. The werewolf howled in pain and skidded to a messy stop a few feet behind the witcher.

Geralt rose and turned on one foot, bringing his sword in front of himself guardedly before he sprang forward. The wolf snarled and rearranged its paws before it sprang, launching itself from the rooftop in a two-metre leap and coming to a clumsy stop on the next building.

Geralt stopped and cocked his head to the side.

The wolf collapsed down and licked its wound, safe in the knowledge that the witcher could no longer reach him.

Geralt’s emotions and his senses had left him. His potion refused to allow him to consider what would happen if he fell from such a height. Instead, he sheathed his sword and crouched down into a running-start. His muscles coiled, his eyes narrowed in on the next rooftop and he ran. He jumped, was airborne for a few moments, before his shin collided with the thatched eaves that hung from the side of the roof. His right hand flung out and grabbed a handful of the thatch-roof and he grunted as he pulled his body weight up.

The wolf mewled low in surprise and jumped back on all fours, roaring at Geralt in an attempt to scare him off.

When the witcher did not back away, the wolf instead stalked towards him, stumbling on its damaged leg.

Geralt smirked as he drew his sword, feeling the featherweight silver in his palm and seeing his strike before he took it. He was going to enjoy this – nothing could come between the witcher and his kill now.

The distant creak of wood reverberated in Geralt’s ears. He didn’t turn from the wolf, knowing it would attack the moment it saw an opportunity, but he did tune into the noise.

The creaking was a door opening below. The sound of music and voices bled out into the night until the door slammed shut again. Then boots stumbled over cobblestones and drunken singing rang out loudly.

_That_ singing.

The werewolf bounded to the side of the roof and peered down below. Geralt risked a glance down as well.

Across the square, Jaskier, freshly emerged from the town tavern, took a long swig from a flask before bleating a dirty limerick loudly at the night sky. His grey doublet was long gone, leaving behind an untucked white shirt. His eyes were red-rimmed, and his lute was nowhere to be found.

The anger that surged through the witcher was incomparable to anything a human could ever claim to feel. How could the bard do something so reckless?

Jaskier only ever got drunk-drunk when his latest crush dumped him and life for him ended as he knew it. The only difference this time was that, this time, it really would.

Geralt knew he was not seeing the bard through his normal eyes, but with every heightened sense he had, and the dejection and ungovernable wildness surrounding him was almost palpable. He was a man undone.

The werewolf howled loudly into the night and Geralt turned, but not quick enough, it had already sprung. Geralt watched as the wolf landed on all fours on the cobblestones and bounded across the town square to its easy meal.

Geralt growled and jumped recklessly. He was acting on primal instinct alone, feeling as though a lion protecting its mate from an attacking beast. He landed heavily on his feet but felt not a bit of it as he raced after the werewolf. He jumped on its back and tried to tackle it to the floor bare-handed. The werewolf roared and flung Geralt back. The witcher fell face-first to the floor, the cobblestones cracked into his sternum and reverberated through his entire body. He was back on his feet within seconds.

Jaskier had scurried back, tripped, fallen to the ground and was trying to use his hands as the only shield he had as the wolf’s massive head bared down on him and its fur-lips retracted, revealing a mouth full of razor-sharp, glinting fangs.

A sharp tip of silver exploded through the back of the wolf’s head, exiting through its gaping maw and coming to a bloody stop an inch from Jaskier’s face.

The wolf froze and hovered, pinned, for a few moments before it slumped on the sword and its eyes rolled into the back of its head.

The sword retracted sharply, and the beast fell, limp, to the ground.

Jaskier scrambled away from the corpse, scraping his palms on the stone floor as adrenaline coursed through his body and sobered him. But not by much.

Geralt wiped the blood off of his sword on the werewolf’s fur before sheathing it in its leather scabbard on his back. He toed its head with his boot and its tongue lolled out.

Satisfied the beast was dead, Geralt turned his attentions to the bard frozen to the spot on the ground.

Geralt glared at him, all brute primal strength. He was wounded, wheezing, his black eyes sharpened to pinpoints and black veins dancing beneath his pale skin as if they were alive. The bard stared dumbly him. Yeah, he was looking at him now.

He snapped like a tightened coil being released and crossed the space between him and Jaskier in a second. He seized the front of the bard’s shirt with his gloved hands and hauled him to his feet.

Jaskier wailed in surprise and fright. His entire body shook under Geralt’s unexpected manhandling. His eyes were wide with shock and fear and something else Geralt was not privy to.

“Why the _fuck_ would you defy me like that?” Geralt snarled, his face so close to Jaskier’s that flecks of spittle graced the bard’s red-flushed cheeks. “You idiot. You could have been killed!”

He expected Jaskier to be afraid, he _wanted_ him to be afraid. How dare he snub Geralt as though he didn’t exist? This was how powerful he was. He could crush the bard. He could own him. Jaskier belonged to him, and he dared to look away?

But there was no fear in Jaskier’s eyes anymore.

The bard kept his gaze steady as his hands wrapped around Geralt’s wrists holding him up. Geralt felt the warm flesh through his gloves. The world slowed and went silent. They were the only two in it.

Anger crossed the bard’s face and he used his hands on Geralt to shove the witcher back. Geralt released him from shock more than anything.

“Then you’d get everything you wanted!” Jaskier practically screamed, trying to right himself on unsteady legs and back off simultaneously. “Me, taken off your hands permanently!” He stopped, his wild eyes meeting Geralt’s black ones, before he held his arms out as wide as they would go. “Come on, Geralt, have a go! I’m just a weak, defenceless human!” He was laughing maniacally, his face a wreck. “Kill me, have done with it, finish what you started!”

Geralt’s potion was beginning to wane, and he blamed it for the wave of concern that rushed over him as he watched Jaskier break down before him. He groaned. Pain was beginning to blossom in his chest from where the werewolf had thrown him to the ground, in his shin when he’d jumped and somewhere else entirely as Jaskier stood before him and begged him to kill him.

“Jaskier.” His voice was low, pained. “You’re out of your mind. You’re drunk, and you’re probably scared. Don’t be a fucking moron. You know I’d never hurt you, even like this.” He advanced, his leg complaining at him. “Let me take you home.”

He approached the bard, and Jaskier surprised him by landing a punch across his jaw. His face turned to the side, he blamed that on the potion as well, and he didn’t retaliate. He just stayed where he was, watching the cobblestones as the smell of pain from Jaskier’s knuckles wriggled up his nose.

When he looked back at Jaskier, he didn’t recognise the man standing there.

“I’m still getting you home.” He growled.

“You,” Jaskier pointed hysterically at him, blood on his knuckles, “stay the fuck away from me!”

With that, he took off, leaving Geralt stood alone in the town square. He almost followed him, but then he looked at the dead werewolf on the floor. Jaskier was better off without him, in all things.

He picked the werewolf up, his chest tightening painfully, before he dragged its corpse into the woods and buried it in a shallow grave, but not before he cut off a paw to prove to the mayor it was dead.

When he was done, he collapsed alone in the woods beside the grave and soon felt the full effects of the potion leave him.

He shucked off his armour with shaking hands and pulled his shirt up to see the deep blue bruise blossoming over his heart. He let his head hit the floor and grit his teeth as he lay there in quiet agony.

The rational part of his brain was trying to speak up, to tell him to find Roach and get one of his pain-relieving remedies, but he didn’t quite feel like he deserved it.

Jaskier wasn’t bored of him, Jaskier _hated_ him.

Geralt closed his eyes in resignation. It was only a matter of time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Chapter Warning: Violence/Torture/Blood - nothing horrendously graphic

She let her blonde hair down from its elegant knot and huffed, grateful that the mayor of Tarrin had disbanded his son’s wedding banquet before the sun set so she could get away from all the drunk, lechery men pawing at her.

She wanted to kill every last one of them but needs must. She was more annoyed that she was returning empty-handed.

“Are you back, Tabitha, darling?” A soft, melodious voice rang out through the small, unassuming house. “Do come down and keep me company, won’t you? It’s awfully lonely down here.”

She smiled before opening a concealed door in the corner of the room and descending the rickety wooden stairs to the basement.

The basement was as large as the entire house above it but with none of the homely amenities. Its floor was stone and bare, interspersed with a spiders web of thick wooden beams that supported the floor of the house above, there were tables upon tables littered with every magical ingredient for miles, and at the centre of the room was a large iron pot from which a thick cloud of acrid-smelling smoke billowed.

Tabitha’s companion was bent over one such table, crushing a live beetle in a pestle and mortar. The loud ‘crack’ as its shell splintered echoed around the cavernous room.

He had told Tabitha when they had arrived that no one could know a sorcerer was in town. Sorcerers who didn’t serve kings or councils were widely distrusted in the continent, as they served their own ends, and their power was limitless and ungoverned. It was imperative he sequester himself and his work away down here while she was his eyes and ears in the town. She had obeyed, willingly, for she loved her master.

“The mayor ended his banquet early.” She mused, a smile on her face as she stopped a few feet behind him, his back still arched over the table. “On orders from a witcher.”

He stilled, then his back straightened and he turned to her. He was smiling.

“He’s here?”

“I saw him, in the flesh. And not just any old witcher, either.” Her blue eyes sparkled menacingly. “The White Wolf.”

“Ah.” He replied, a crooked smile forming on his face. “Geralt of Rivia. What a stroke of luck.” He mused for a second before he closed the distance between them in one bound, giddy excitement evident in those ancient eyes. “Is he here?” He asked quietly, eyes flashing upwards.

She scowled and looked away. “No.” She admitted. “He would not join me.”

He eyed her tight corset and flaxen hair and raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? Perhaps you weren’t trying hard enough, my dear.”

She glowered at him. “I was doing just fine, thanks. I don’t know what turns those mutant freaks on, do I? Probably don’t have enough limbs.”

He waved his hand dismissively, moving away, brow furrowed in thought.

“We must find a way to bring him to us.” He thought aloud. “Otherwise all of our efforts cursing that human with lycanthropy would have been for naught. We’ve lured him this far, it is time to turn from monsters onto more…” he turned back to her, not hiding his gaze sweeping up her body. It sent a thrill down her spine. “…sensual means.”

She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. “He is not a man like you. His desires will not bring him here.”

“Then what _did_ he want?”

“Ale.” She snorted. “Music.”

“Music?”

“Hmm. He never took his eyes off of the damn bard the whole time I was talking to him. Raucous little shit he was, too, bleating in the corner.”

His brow furrowed in intense thought for a moment. “Where is this bard?”

“Guest of honour at the mayor’s town house.” She reeled off without thinking, before understanding cleared her expression. “Ah, shall I fetch him for you?”

His hands travelled down the curves of her waist and settled on her hips. “Not tonight, the witcher has a werewolf to kill.”

…

Jaskier cracked one eye open and groaned.

The sun was streaming in through the open curtains and stabbing through his eyelids like needles.

He grumbled, covering his eyes with his hands and turning over. The act of rolling over caused a wave of painful nausea to spread through him and he mewled quietly.

He stayed very still for a long time until the pulsing in his skull became too much to ignore. Slowly, he eased himself up into a sitting position.

Well, he was in his guest room at the town house. How he’d gotten back, he’d never know.

He was wearing his white undershirt from the banquet and nothing else, but he could make out his trousers and boots strewn on the floor so was fairly confident he hadn’t paraded naked through the town. Worryingly though, he had a dark bruise and scabs littering the knuckles of his right hand. Had he gotten into a fight? And if so, with who? Hopefully no one that much bigger than him.

He pressed his bruised hand against his forehead, applying pressure to try and relieve his headache.

He steadied himself by burying his left hand into his pillow before scowling. His pillow, and now his hand, were sopping wet. How had that happened?

He pushed himself onto unsteady legs and careened for the dresser, spying a jug of water there. Not bothering with a cup, he downed about three quarters of the jug in four long gulps. He felt better for about three seconds before his stomach lurched and he ran for the basin in the adjacent room.

The water came back out practically untouched, nothing in his stomach for it to mix with, and he winced as his stomach clenched painfully and he dry-retched, clutching the basin to stay upright as his head pounded. He stayed where he was for a long time until the waves of pain and nausea infinitesimally lessened and he was breathing heavily with a trail of spittle on his lips.

He was _never_ going to drink again. Which would probably last until the evening.

His palms were sore where he was gripping the basin tightly and he released it and looked at them, expecting to see indentations and was surprised to see scrapes and grazes in the spongey flesh there.

The memory, or rather the sensation, of dragging himself along the ground passed through his mind. He frowned. Maybe he’d been trying to get away from someone?

An image of thick brown fur and demonic yellow eyes attacked him, baring its glinting fangs as they tried to enclose around him.

“Gods!” Jaskier croaked with a ragged voice. His heartbeat sped up as anxiety surged through him. It was a werewolf, that’s what had attacked him, and he’d been on the floor with it on top of him, ready to kill him, then Geralt…

He stopped. Geralt.

He let his head hang loosely over the basin, still pounding obscenely, as he remembered the witcher snarling at him with those dark eyes and thick black veins spearing his skin. He’d tried to drag him to safety and Jaskier had screeched at him like an insane banshee. And, he realised, he had hit him.

“Bollocks.” He said quietly.

He hadn’t been expecting to see Geralt. Ever again. Then to clap eyes on him at that banquet, just stood there all black and white and like nothing had changed, it broke something in him, and it wasn’t exactly like he had it together at all lately.

The truth was, Jaskier’s entire life had been pulled from underneath him when Geralt had sent him away on top of that cursed mountain. Everything he’d dedicated his career, his art, his time to, and everything he derived joy from, was just gone.

He hadn’t been able to play, or sing, for a while after that. Music felt sort of pointless without being able to ask Geralt if he liked it, and without the White Wolf he had nothing to sing about.

He’d not felt so alone in a very long time and the silence that had haunted him down the mountain, and ever since, had been deafening.

That was why he liked it in Tarrin, because it felt like he was getting better here and he was beginning to find himself again and create a whole new identity that didn’t rely on the one person who wanted nothing to do with him. He’d started playing again, he’d been wooing various ladies of Tarrin’s court and had even struck up a favourable relationship with the mayor’s son. Jaskier _liked_ it here. He was maybe thinking he might stay a while, maybe thinking he might start picking up the pieces of his life.

Then – Geralt. His entire heart, his entire soul – the very thing ripped from him, was suddenly before him again, grasping for his attention and fighting for his life.

Jaskier scrunched his face up, moisture wetting his eyelashes and he just stood there and shook for a few moments before quickly righting himself, washing his mouth out and leaving the room to look for some much-needed pain-relief.

He pulled on his grey breeches and, without a fresh shirt to change into, was forced to keep the one he’d slept in on. With two dark rings under his eyes, and foul mood on his tongue, the bard trudged down the stairs of the large town house intent on seeking out the mayor to apologise for whatever state he’d stumbled back in the night before. He was surprised, however, to find the dining hall empty save for a single woman sitting alone at the table and taking a delicate sip of wine.

She was pretty, with long blonde hair and a loose-fitting white dress. When she looked up at Jaskier, she smiled.

“H…hello.” He stammered, wishing sorely that he didn’t look, or feel, like last weeks rotten chicken carcass. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, miss…?”

“Tabitha.” She said, standing and pouring more wine into her glass until the jug was empty. She reached for another, pouring a dark red drink into a separate chalice. “The mayor expresses his regrets you could not join him for breakfast.”

Jaskier winced. “Yeah, I, err, I…should speak to him, actually. Do you know where he is?”

“He’s gone hunting with his son to celebrate his nuptials.” Tabitha explained, holding the fresh chalice of wine out to Jaskier. “Hair of the dog?”

“Oh, err, no thanks, not for me.”

She smirked. “It’s the best hangover cure, they say.”

He tilted his head to the side. Well, it couldn’t make him feel any worse, could it? He took the proffered chalice. It was cold and heavy in his hand.

“Cheers.” She said, holding her cup aloft.

Jaskier raised his own in affirmation before taking a stiff swig. It was fruity, with a tang of something he couldn’t quite identity, and an incredibly bitter aftertaste.

“Ooh. That’ll get you out of bed in the morning.”

“Actually, that’s the opposite of its effects.”

“Hmm?” Jaskier looked at her, but she was swimming before his eyes.

The waves of nausea from his hangover came back in spades and his delicate stomach flipped painfully. His limbs felt heavy, and he couldn’t keep himself upright anymore, and then he was tumbling to the floor.

…

The first thing Jaskier felt when he came too was pain in his shoulders.

He groaned, body slumping forward as his eyes tried to focus. The pain in his arms intensified suddenly and he gasped, trying instinctively to yank his arms down but he couldn’t. The pressure of something cold and hard bit into his wrists.

He mumbled in confusion as black images warped his field of vision and then everything came back into sharp focus immediately as if he’d just been roused from a deep slumber.

The first thing he saw was his knees on the stone floor, his grey breeches stained with something dark but honestly, he was just grateful he was still dressed. He was still wearing the same white shirt from before and the acrid smell of vomit clinging to him was slowly crawling up his nostrils. He wasn’t sure if that was from the previous night or when he’d been unconscious. But, most worryingly, his arms were wrenched tightly above his head and chained, he imagined, to a beam or a post behind him.

His breathing came out in shallow, panicked bursts as he tried to look around himself and figure out where he was, but his arms were bound so tightly above him that all he could do was move his head from side to side.

He was in a large, sparse room. Everything was cold and stone except for wooden tables and a large iron pot in the centre. Just big enough for a person. His brain immediately filled with the stories his mother had told him as a child, that little boys that didn’t finish their dinner were cooked up themselves in a witch’s big iron cauldron. He’d been terrified of that witch when he was a boy, and even though he knew it was all a fiction, the same bolt of fear he’d felt when he was ten shot through him.

“Oh, you’re finally awake.”

Jaskier wrenched his head to the side as a surprisingly young-looking man with a shock of black hair, who was dressed head to toe in a fine silver cloak, waltzed into his field of vision as if he’d just appeared in the room.

“I gave you a little something to cure your ailment,” his kidnapper continued. “I didn’t think you’d be much use to me if you couldn’t see straight.”

It hadn’t even occurred to Jaskier that his hangover was gone, and it wasn’t occurring to him now.

“Who the hell are you?” He demanded; teeth bared. “What have you done to me?”

“Absolutely nothing.” He replied sanguinely, a content smile on his face and his arms tucked behind his back as he stood before the bard, towering over him where he was forced to kneel upon the floor.

“Let me go!” Jaskier tried to wrench his arms free, but the pressure it put on his socket joints made him wince and he stilled.

“Not just yet, my humble bard.” The stranger continued. “Please, allow me to introduce myself. I am Ensa of Kaedwen. I served as mage to King Henselt for fifty years before prioritising my own pursuits.”

Jaskier stilled. It strained his eyes to look up at Ensa’s face but he did so anyway. “You’re a sorcerer?”

“Correct.”

Jaskier’s stomach fell. Why did he always have such bad luck with sorcerers?

“What do you want with me?” He asked. “I’m just a bard. If you’re after the werewolf corpse, I don’t know where it is, I swear.”

Ensa was chuckling lightly and seemed to take pity on Jaskier as he crouched in front of him so they were face to face.

“I care not for the wolf, bard, not that wolf, anyway.”

Jaskier’s forehead creased. “Why do mages always speak in such godsdamned riddles?” He spat. “Tell me what you want!”

Ensa’s calm face dissolved into a steel mask. “I want you to tell me where he is.” The mage leant closer until Jaskier could feel his breath on his cheek. “The witcher.”

Jaskier’s blood ran cold. Panic set in his body. But it wasn’t just panic. He was angry. He was angry that Geralt could not go about his life without encountering danger at every turn. What right did every mage or man have to threaten him?

It was true Jaskier hadn’t wanted to see the witcher for a long time after their fight, but the truism that anything could happen to Geralt in his line of work, and that Jaskier would never know, haunted him every day.

“I don’t know any witchers.” He said.

Ensa put his hands on his cloaked knees and pushed himself up, turning his back on Jaskier and walking away. In a second, he was back, his booted foot connecting heavily with Jaskier’s jaw.

The bard wheezed as his head was forced to the side and blood sprayed across the floor. Lightning bolts of pain shot up through his arms at the jerked movement as his body rocked back.

Heat prickled at his jaw and spread quickly up his face. His mouth was wet, filling with something before he gurgled, and a macabre mixture of blood and saliva dribbled down his chin and splattered on the stone floor between his knees.

Ensa knelt before him, taking his face in one hand and forcing his head up to him. Jaskier mewled, the pain making his vision swim as tears collected in his eyes.

The look in the mage’s ancient eyes was fierce and Jaskier trembled.

“I’m going to ask you again.” He said threateningly. “Where is Geralt of Rivia?”

“I don’t know.” Jaskier slurred, blood bubbling at his lips as he spoke.

The mage snarled and Jaskier knew it was coming before it did. He squeezed his eyes shut, as if that would somehow protect him. He didn’t know what hit him, if it was a fist, a boot, or something else entirely. Red exploded behind his eyelids as his brain bounced around in his skull.

His entire body fell forward heavily, putting all his weight on his knees digging into the stone floor and his shoulder sockets screaming at him.

“Fuck.” He choked out as more blood dribbled down his front and hit the floor. Tears were falling freely from his eyes from a mixture of pain and helplessness. “Why do you want Geralt?” He asked, hoping if he distracted the mage, he wouldn’t hit him again.

“I grew up near Kaer Morhen.” Ensa explained, a wistful tone in his voice. “I used to admire those witchers so, made by our magic to become the warriors that they are.”

Jaskier tried to laugh but ended up choking on his own blood. “That’s what this is about? You want to be a witcher?”

Ensa looked at him derivatively. “No, idiot, I don’t want to be a mutant. Witchers were made by our magic, they belong to us, to do our bidding, their powerful ends turned to our means.”

Jaskier baulked. “You’re fucking crazy.” He choked out. “You can’t capture witcher’s, trust me, I know them better than you, pal.”

Another blow, this time across the side of his face. He felt skin split under the mage’s fist and the sickly heat of blood running down his cheek. He breathed heavily, every breath agony, as his mind tried desperately to shut itself off from what was happening and block out the pain and the fear of what might happen next.

The mage was up on his feet, stalking back and forth, with his arms held behind his back with Jaskier’s blood staining his knuckles. If it weren’t for that, no one could guess what was happening.

“Ready to change your mind, bard? I can make your life quite unpleasant.”

Jaskier’s entire body vibrated with a mixture of rage and pain. He focused on the pool of red on the floor below him to ground himself. He thought of all the times travelling with Geralt had put him in a similar situation of life and death and fear and pain. He thought of ending his torment, of throwing the witcher away to this mage as he’d been thrown away by the witcher atop that wretched mountain.

“I told you I don’t know where he is. But –“, the mage had stopped pacing and was looking intently at him, “- even if I did, I’d never tell you, you’d have to kill me.”

Jaskier was expecting a blow. He closed his eyes and said his goodbyes. He felt more regret than joy at the images behind his eyelids and that saddened him.

No blow came.

He cracked an eye open.

The mage was still looking at him, arms still behind his back, that odd calm smile back on his face.

Jaskier was certain his heart stopped beating in a pregnant pause.

“That’s no matter.” The mage finally said, turning away. “You are but the worm to my fish, bard. The witcher will come to you.”

“You’re fucking crazy.”

The switch flipped on that sociopathic rage and the mage struck him, hard, across the cheek. Jaskier’s head dropped, hanging limply between his taut shoulders.

The mage, content he was unconscious, turned to walk away until a pained sound stopped him.

Ensa turned back to the bard. His head was still down but his body was shaking against his bonds as a low laugh rocked through him.

“What’s so fucking funny?” Ensa demanded furiously.

Jaskier slowly raised his head. Blood was dribbling from his mouth and staining his white teeth as mouth stretched into a grin. He looked a mixture of innocent and feral.

“You’re wasting your time.” He laughed, as if in triumph. “He won’t come for me. He doesn’t care.”

…

Geralt led Roach to the outskirts of Tarrin distractedly, his mind still preoccupied with all that had happened the night before.

His body also ailed him. He was sore and heavy with bruises and fatigue but luckily not much worse. He’d tried to rest in the woods but he was too exhilarated, too exhausted, and he’d just ended up staring at the stars until the sun came up, resigning himself, almost in punishment, to more restless days and nights on the road.

He wished only now for fatigue to immobilise him, which seemed to be the only time he got any rest these days. His mind was blocked, doubtless caused by the departure of a certain sorceress, and he gladly welcomed the sweet embrace of unconsciousness.

So preoccupied was the witcher, that he barely noticed the blonde woman standing by the town sign.

“Leaving town?” She asked.

He didn’t respond, walking straight past her. He stroked one hand through Roach’s mane to direct her down a narrow pathway through the woods and out of Tarrin.

“I’d stay if I were you.” She called after him. “I have something of yours, Geralt of Rivia.”

Geralt snorted. He’d recognised her as the woman he’d turned down the night before. Hell _really_ hath no fury like a woman scorned, he thought.

“I have nothing.” He replied nonchalantly without turning back.

Tabitha watched the witcher’s leather-clad back as he walked away from her and annoyance seeped out of every pore of her body. Men never listened to her, regardless of their mutations. If she had magic like Ensa, she could ensnare him easily, but she was only a woman. The advantage of that, however, was that she could bring men down with the one thing they feared most. Their hearts. If witcher’s really were emotionless beasts, then she was finished.

“I have your bard.”

The witcher stopped.

Tabitha allowed herself a small moment of victory before she tilted her head to side and watched him. He wasn’t moving a single muscle. It was like he had turned to stone before her very eyes. _Could witcher’s do that?_ She panicked.

Then, so quietly the wind had to carry the words to her: “Where is he?” His voice was low and _seething_. He turned to her then, a tremor of barely held rage rippling dangerously below his skin. His yellow eyes were ablaze like flames.

Tabitha’s hand shook but she stilled herself. She had the upper hand and she could not show fear.

“If you want him alive, you’ll come with me.”

They walked in silence. Geralt stayed a few feet behind her with Roach as they walked through the busy town square, through hordes of people unaware of the dangerous proximity of a witcher close to the brink. She kept forward, practically feeling holes being burnt into her back by his eyes. Only when she reached the house she and Ensa had been occupying, did she turn to him. His face was an emotionless mask. He approached her silently, and she shrunk under his height, his thick muscular frame and his impregnable gaze.

_Take back control,_ she berated herself, _he’s yours now._

She smiled hugely and pointed at the door. “They’re in there. But I wouldn’t put too much hope in your precious troubadour being in any fit state after some time with my companion.” She laughed. “Sweet little thing, isn’t he? I imagine he’s very pretty when he bleeds.”

Geralt buried his iron sword up to the hilt in her neck.

She stared at him, wide eyed, before she gurgled and collapsed to the floor.

Geralt snarled, eyes made of steel, and didn’t bother sheathing his sword or even glancing at her body as he crept silently into the house.

It looked every bit like a normal home, if a little bare, but the coppery tang of blood was overwhelming to Geralt’s heightened senses. A shot of adrenalin rushed through him but he forced himself to calm. He took a measured step forward. The thought of finding Jaskier’s body, mangled and broken, swam unceremoniously through his head. His chest constricted.

He followed his nose through a small, concealed door and down a flight of creaky wooden stairs to a large, stark stone basement supported by wooden beams. At the far end, chained to one of those beams by the wrists, was Jaskier.

The bard was hanging limply by his restraints, his face a mask of blood and swollen flesh, and he was kneeling in a pool of his own blood.

Something inside Geralt _snapped_.

“Ah, witcher, thank you for joining us, I trust…” Ensa began, turning with an elegant swish of his silver cloak from the iron pot he was stirring. He didn’t get to finish his sentence.

Geralt strode across the basement, boots thudding heavily on the stone floor, it took him barely ten strides to reach the pot. His iron sword clattered to the ground, abandoned, and he picked the mage up off the floor with his large, gloved hands around his neck.

The mage scrabbled his hands desperately as Geralt’s thick fingers restricted his windpipe. His cheeks were going red and his eyes were bulging but Geralt did not falter. He did not believe he was fully in control of his body. It was like he’d taken a potion. His instincts had carried him across the room, had seized the powerful mage in the closest and most intimate attack Geralt knew. He wanted to _feel_ it, he wanted to feel the life leave the mage’s body. He wanted him to suffer as he struggled for air. He wanted to _punish_ him for laying a finger on what was his, for threatening to take Jaskier from him. Geralt would never admit it, he’d probably never even realise, but fear drove him as much as anger did.

“Please…” The mage gurgled.

Geralt snarled, tilting his head to the side as he tried to decide what to do.

_One less monster in the world._

He twisted his hands and the resulting snap of bone reverberated around the room like a beetle’s shell cracking. Geralt dropped the mage’s lifeless body unceremoniously to the ground and left it there.

He turned immediately. Jaskier was staring up at him with a mixture of shock and relief on his tortured face. Geralt could see the individual marks on his skin now. His cheek was cut and swelling, a dark blue bruise was welting on his jaw and blood was dripping from his mouth. His eyes were hooded, weak, and his back was twisted and arched from the strain of having his wrists yanked so far above his head.

Geralt bolted to him, grabbed the top of the chain and yanked. The chain remained intact but the beam splintered and Jaskier’s arms fell to his sides in their shackles. The bard mewled quietly and slumped forward but Geralt was already on his knees in front of him, catching him before he could fall and hurt himself any further.

“Geralt…” Jaskier slurred into the witcher’s armoured chest.

Rage and fury and regret surged through the witcher as he heard the bard’s pained breaths and felt the boneless way he fell against him. This had happened because of him. Geralt had done this.

“You’re going to be okay, Jaskier.” He promised, before falling back and looking at his injured face. “I need you to stay awake for me.”

Jaskier’s eyes blinked independently of each other and fresh blood bubbled at his lips as he nodded slowly.

Geralt tried to keep his senses as he leant the bard back securely against the broken beam. He crossed to the dead mage and fumbled in the pockets of his cloak until he found a set of keys and undid the shackles around Jaskier’s wrists. His wrists were red raw and bruised below the iron and Geralt winced.

“Come on, time to go.”

He heaved the bard up, as gently as possible, and carried him in his arms up the stairs and out of the house.

He found Roach outside where he had left her, nosing the body of the blonde woman interestedly.

Geralt looked around himself. The little house was secluded from the rest of the town, probably why it had been selected, so luckily no one had stumbled across the body yet.

He sat Jaskier down, leaning him against the stone wall of the house and tried to move away.

The poor man was close to passing out, his eyes were unfocused, but his hands were surprisingly strong when they gripped Geralt’s wrists and tried to keep him there.

Geralt stared down at his hands, from the dark indentation marks on his wrists to the scabbing knuckles from hitting him the night before. Every mark on Jaskier’s body, Geralt had put there. He gulped.

“I’m sorry.”

Jaskier slurred something, but Geralt couldn’t understand him.

Geralt eased his hands from Jaskier’s grip and went to one of Roach’s saddle bags. He returned immediately, crouching next to Jaskier and uncorking a small vial of putrid-smelling green liquid under his nose.

Jaskier moaned softly and his nose wrinkled.

“I know.” Geralt said sympathetically. “It’s not going to taste nice, but it’ll make you feel better.”

Jaskier tried again to push the vial away.

Geralt sighed, changing the vial from one hand to another, before he eased his hand to Jaskier’s chin, trying his best to avoid any of the worse swelling, and tipped his head back. He could feel the bard’s coarse stubble through his glove as he held him steady and, using the other hand, trickled the green liquid into his red-stained mouth.

Jaskier coughed, and Geralt discarded the vial and gripped the bard’s shoulder until he had swallowed the liquid and the convulsions brought on by the concoction stopped.

Jaskier closed his eyes, his head slumping in Geralt’s grip, and it felt like he was dying. Geralt pursed his lips. He’d used this potion a thousand times. He knew a side-effect of its healing properties was lethargy. He knew the bard had fallen asleep. But still. He looked like he’d died, he looked broken and bloodied, he looked like Geralt had failed him.

Geralt’s bottom lip trembled and a sound escaped him. He knelt, head bowed against Jaskier’s, breathing in the scent of the bard’s blood, and what he was pretty sure was vomit, before he took a shaky breath and stood.

He lay Jaskier on Roach and took him to the same tavern he’d recklessly emerged from the night before. He rented a room with his spoils from the werewolf hunt and took him upstairs. Because of course, Geralt didn’t know where Jaskier was staying because they might as well have been strangers now.

He was just making sure he was okay, Geralt told himself, then he could leave.

He laid Jaskier down on the bed and stripped him of his bloody shirt and boots but left his breeches. The bard moaned softly and turned over, clutching the blankets to his body.

Geralt left him there for a while. He returned to the house, removed the bodies and informed the mayor of Tarrin that a dangerous rogue mage had been hiding in his town and kidnapped the bard for his evil ends. The mayor had been a mixture of concerned and relieved for Jaskier, stating that he’d been worried since he had not returned to the town house for several hours. He’d also tried to pay Geralt for, yet again, saving his town from peril but Geralt simply shook his head and told him to give it to the bard for his troubles. Then he turned and left.

After much deliberation, he returned to the inn. He hesitated outside of the door for a moment, his hand clutching the knob but not turning it. He wanted to pretend he didn’t know why, but it was because he didn’t want to face Jaskier. The look of loathing on his face from the night before still haunted the witcher, and now after he’d been beaten, _tortured_ because of him he knew he had more likelihood of waking up a unicorn than he had of ever earning the man’s forgiveness.

He swallowed his pride and opened the door.

Jaskier was awake. He was sat up in the bed with the blanket wrapped around himself up to his chin and he was staring blankly at the wall.

His face was still cut and bruised, but the swelling had reduced, and his expression was less clouded. Now he just looked troubled.

A look of surprise crossed his face when Geralt walked in and quietly closed the door behind him.

“Geralt.” He said, his voice was a little ragged. “I didn’t think you were coming back.”

Geralt stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed. “I didn’t know you were staying with the mayor.” He said dumbly. “But I had to bring you somewhere for the potion to take effect.” He eyed him critically. “How do you feel?”

“Better.” Jaskier admitted. “Still sore but like it happened a week ago, not an hour.”

Geralt nodded stiffly.

“What happened to the mage?” He asked.

“He’s dead.” Geralt replied. “I…”

“I know, I saw.” Jaskier cut him off, not wanting to repeat how he’d watched the witcher snap the mage’s neck with his bare hands. “I mean, his body?”

“I took care of it, and the girl, too. That’s all you have to worry about.”

Jaskier stared at him, then nodded, then looked down at the blanket shrouding him.

“I…brought you this.” Geralt tossed a plain white shirt on the bed.

Jaskier just stared at it.

Geralt had never seen him so quiet before. It frightened him. He wanted to say something but he didn’t know what.

“Thanks.” Jaskier said.

“No problem.” He turned to walk away.

“No, I mean, thank you.” Jaskier repeated. Geralt turned back. “For saving me, I mean. You didn’t have to.”

Geralt scoffed automatically. Did Jaskier honestly think he was going to leave him to die? But then maybe he honestly did. Fuck, that hurt, almost as much as watching a man bloodied and bruised because of him be _fucking grateful_ for it.

“This shouldn’t have happened to you.”

“He wanted to know where you were, I couldn’t tell him.” Jaskier shrugged, as if it were as simple as that.

“You didn’t know.” Geralt tried to rationalise.

Jaskier looked down. “Still.” He said quietly.

Such heavy implication in such a small word. That after everything, Jaskier wouldn’t betray him no matter what it cost.

A thick heavy fog rose around the witcher, suffocating him. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t be here. Without saying a word, he turned for the door.

“Wait!” Jaskier called after him in the most animated he’d been since Geralt had walked in. There was a note of panic in his voice. Geralt didn’t listen.

He reached for the knob and then hands were on his, twisting him until he was face to face with the bard. Jaskier was shirtless with crimson clumps in his chest hair, a bruise climbing his neck and a look of desperation in his blue eyes.

His hands on Geralt’s were tight as he tried to stop him from leaving. The effect stopped Geralt dead and he stood, like a hunk of stone, before Jaskier. He had no words.

And yet, Jaskier’s eyes searched his for answers he couldn’t give.

“Why did you come?” Jaskier asked.

_Because I would die a thousand times over to undo what I did to convince you that I’d become the person who would ever leave you._

“Because…you’re my friend.”

Jaskier’s hands on him didn’t move but the feel of them changed somehow. The contact intensified under Geralt’s words. The air in the finite space between them was no longer air, it was palpable, as if nothing parted them.

Jaskier stepped forward and kissed him.

It was a hard kiss. A simple but unyielding pressure of lips against lips. Jaskier’s eyes closed and his forehead creased as if in pain. Geralt’s eyes squeezed shut beyond his control, enslaved by the hot press of lips against his own and the heady scent of Jaskier’s fear and pain shrouding him like a cocoon.

And it hurt. It hurt because Geralt couldn’t push him away. He didn’t want to.

But Jaskier was injured and terrified and clinging to the only protection he’d ever known and Geralt _couldn’t do this_ , not when he’d already lost him.

He pulled back, feeling cold and empty and alone, and his eyes never left the ground as he opened the door and slipped outside, leaving behind tears in Jaskier’s eyes that he didn’t see.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The chapter we’ve all been waiting for 😉

Jaskier was gone by the time Geralt returned to the inn.

Geralt wasn’t surprised, he _had_ been out most of the night. He’d been training in the woodland, unnecessarily blunting the blade of his iron sword against the bark of a poor oak tree and imagining it was the mage’s face that he was skewering. The sun was beginning to rise by the time witcher dragged himself, exhausted, back to his now-empty room.

He dropped his sword – it clattered heavily to the ground – pulled his armour off and collapsed face-first onto the bed. His hulking dead weight shook the wooden frame.

His loud groan was muffled by the pillow. The acrid tang of Jaskier’s blood and the familiar musk of his sweat clung to it.

But there were new scents there now, as well, scents the witcher had never been close enough to the bard to smell before: the moisture of his spittle, the gentle heat of his lips. Jaskier had cried in this bed, and he had pressed fingertips to dusky lips to chase the feel of Geralt’s own against them.

Geralt rolled over to the other side of the bed, trying to hide from the smell, but still it clung to him. Irate, he sat up on the edge of the bed, his still booted feet falling heavily to the wooden floor. His chest complained at him from the sudden movement and he curled a hand around himself before fishing blindly for his pack on the floor. Using sense-memory, his fingers blindly enclosed around a familiar glass vial. He stared at the viridescent potion for a moment. Maybe he should have given Jaskier more of these before he ran away from him. He was still injured, after all.

He shook his head as he downed the vile liquid and smashed the glass bottle on the floor from a mixture of distraction and stress. He gathered a fistful of his white hair and pulled it from his eyes, letting his head tip back as he allowed the potion to work its effects on his body. This was the price he was to pay for attempting to fight a werewolf bare-handed. But he’d done it for Jaskier, and now he couldn’t even look him in the eye.

He could not return to Jaskier, nor could he care for him. Not merely because Jaskier’s kiss had frightened him, but because Jaskier had still told Geralt to stay away from him and Geralt knew he would never forget such a command. It still burned raw and painful behind his eyelids as if the bard’s words had been sharpened to daggers before they were hurled at him.

Jaskier was right to send him away. He’d put him in enough danger just by being close to him. Jaskier was better off without him, as was Yennefer and his child surprise.

He opened his eyes and found the ceiling. He had to leave town.

…

Geralt bought provisions for his days ahead on the road and stopped as he passed an apothecary. He went inside. It was a small, dusty shop with shelves of tinctures and salves that paled in comparison to the potions Geralt himself could concoct.

“Is there a doctor here?” He asked the empty gloom.

“Indeed, witcher.” A short, bespectacled man with white hair emerged from the back room and looked him up and down. “What ails you?”

Geralt grimaced at him. “It’s not for me. My…a man was hurt. He requires your attention.”

“Ah.” The doctor said, adjusting his spectacles on his nose. “What happened to his poor fellow?”

“He was attacked by a mage. To what extent, I don’t know.”

“Is he with you?”

“No.”

“Then I’m afraid, witcher, my house-calling prices are not cheap. Tough times, you see.”

“Hmm.” Geralt pulled out the pouch the mayor had supplied him with for the werewolf paw and tipped more than half of what remained into the hand of the doctor.

The doctor pocketed the coin and nodded his head.

“Yes, this should suffice. Where shall I find this patient?”

“The mayor’s house. A bard. Examine him, no matter how stubborn he is.”

“Yes, of course, my dear witcher, I shall. Would you care for a report of your friend’s…”

“I’ll be gone by nightfall.” Geralt interrupted stiffly, already heading for the door. He stopped and turned back. “Don’t tell him who sent you.” Was all he said before he was gone.

…

The mayor had been horrified at the state of Jaskier when he’d returned with cuts and bruises all over his face.

Jaskier had seen no other option but to tell him the truth, omitting certain details of course, that an insane sorcerer had kidnapped him and beaten him to try and find the whereabouts of the witcher. He didn’t tell him that he had history with Geralt, or that he was the very bard who had made the white wolf famous enough that the mayor had requested him specifically, because he could not bear to have the witcher’s name on his tongue or his face in his mind. He wanted to be numb.

The mayor had surprised him, then, by explaining that he already knew because the witcher had stopped by and told him. Not to mention that he had asked the mayor to give Jaskier himself his payment for the job. Jaskier had stared at him, speechless, as he pressed a bag of coin into his hand that by all rights should have been gracing Geralt’s. His mind immediately sought to return it to him. But he could not. So he just held it dumbly as the mayor kept talking.

The mayor insisted he return to bed at once and rest while a doctor was summoned. Jaskier had managed to regain enough of his faculty at that point to politely decline, explaining all he wanted was rest and to be alone for a while, before thanking the mayor profusely for his kind heart and generosity. Surprisingly, the mayor had hugged him and told him he thought of him as one with his son, before sending the bard to bed as a father would.

Jaskier dropped the bag of coin on the dresser as soon as he was in his room. He didn’t want to see it. He stripped out of his breeches until he was wearing only the white shirt Geralt had gifted him, and then crawled into bed and wrapped the blanket around himself. He imagined what the world would be like if everyone were like the mayor of Tarrin. There would be no werewolves, no evil sorcerers or the hurt and pain that accompanied them. But then there would also be no witchers and Jaskier knew he would not like to endure such a world. Geralt had caused him misery, but Jaskier readily knew that misery could not exist without joy from which to derive it from.

His hand went to his own face and the cut on his cheek stung as he prodded it. His mind was unceremoniously forced back to being chained in that basement, as had happened many times during his restless, lonely night in the inn. His arms ached like they were still restrained behind him. He supposed he could have died. Twice in as many days.

He thought about the way Geralt had strode in, looking like man possessed, picked up the mage and snapped his neck like a dry twig.

Jaskier honestly forgot half the time that Geralt was this big, strong brute who could kill with his bare hands. He knew him too well. He’d never found him scary. He still didn’t find him scary. It was not fear that persuaded his traitorous mind to replay the memory over and over.

Geralt was supposed to hate him. He had ordered him out of his life. He’d made it clear he no longer cared for him, that he never had in fact, and that Jaskier was but a burden on his solitary life. And yet. And yet, he’d strode into that basement like a hero from a ballad. _Jaskier’s_ hero from _Jaskier’s godsdamned ballads_.

That was why he had kissed him, why that particular moment, why hearing the word ‘friend’ grace the witcher’s mouth for the first time had tipped him over the edge like nothing had done before. It was because he was scared he was going to lose Geralt all over again, but the truth was that he’d been stupid for thinking he’d ever got him back.

Geralt had left him again, after Jaskier had given him all he could give him. That was, his entire self. And now everything felt like a finality. Because no matter what happened between them now for the rest of their lives, they could never go back to how things were. Geralt would always know how Jaskier felt about him and what Jaskier wanted, and Jaskier would always know how soft and warm the witcher’s lips were. And he would always know that, even though he’d ran from him, there had still been but a second where Geralt’s eyes had closed and he’d kissed him back.

A soft knock at the door made Jaskier jump.

“Err, come in.” He said.

The door creaked open and an elderly bespectacled man accompanied by a strong-looking lad of sixteen entered his room. The elderly man was carrying a leather satchel and his young companion held a heavy-looking bag in his arms.

“Mr Pankratz, my name is Odar Andete, this is my assistant Thomas, I am Tarrin’s top physician, and most terribly pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Jaskier smiled to himself. Okay, maybe there was no talking the mayor out of it, then.

“Please, come in, gentlemen.” He said.

Odar and Thomas walked into the room. The doctor set his satchel down on the dresser before approaching the bed.

Jaskier was attempting to stand but the physician held his hand up to still him. “No need for that, Mr Pankratz, you look to be in quite bad shape.”

“I’m fine, really.” Jaskier admitted, staying put. “Just a little sore.”

Odar sat on the bed beside him and gently took his chin in his hands and tipped his head back. The movement reminded Jaskier of something, but he couldn’t quite recall what. He stayed still as his head was gently moved from side to side.

“Hmm.” The doctor said, looking critically at the cut slowly scabbing on his cheek. “Well, the good news is nothing is broken. You’re tremendously lucky, young man. But you have some bad swelling. Luckily, I have a salve that should ease your discomfort.”

Jaskier sat dutifully as the doctor’s assistant gently cleaned the clumped blood from his face and chest before applying a pale white salve to his abrasions. It was cold and it stung before it became tingly, then his entire face felt like it was going pleasantly numb.

The doctor then moved on to examine his arms and shoulders. As he coaxed Jaskier’s shoulders in their joints, he winced noticeably, and the doctor called for the servants.

Before long, two of the mayor’s servants were filling up the wooden tub in Jaskier’s wash room with jugs of steaming water.

“I…” Jaskier hesitated, trying to stand, but Odar’s hand was on his chest and keeping him firmly in place.

“Not only will a good soak with purifying salts alleviate the pulled muscles of your shoulders and upper arms, but it is imperative to wash away all dirt and grime to stop infections in your wounds.”

Jaskier pursed his lips and conceded.

He sat, naked, in the hot bath and felt strangely vulnerable as Thomas applied cream to his face and advanced on him with a straight razor. But with the numbing salve still working its magic, metaphorically speaking, he barely felt the scrape of metal over his skin. The elderly doctor sat on a stool at the front of the tub and held Jaskier’s arms aloft as he wrapped clean bandages around his bruised wrists.

Jaskier sat with his legs pulled up to his chest in an attempt to preserve his dignity and it was the first time he noticed that his knees were bruised and scraped. It was bizarre. He wasn’t even in that much pain. In fact, the jarring ache in his body was more akin to sleeping funny than from being tortured by an insane, power-hungry mage. Whatever potion Geralt had given him truly was the product of witchcraft.

By the time he was clean, shaven and bandaged, the doctor’s assistant helped him back into his clothes and sat him back on the bed and Jaskier had a dopey smile on his face.

“I can’t thank you enough, kind sirs, I am deeply humbled.”

The doctor waved his hand dismissively as he placed a few vials of pain-relieving tinctures on the dresser. “Not a word of it, young man.” He said. “You’ve had a traumatising experience. Now, take one of these once a day for the next seven cycles of the sun and you should feel right as rain.”

“What do I owe you?”

“Your bill has been settled.”

Jaskier’s eyes dropped. He didn’t like the thought of being in debt to the mayor. Perhaps he could offer his services free of charge for a few nights or something? He tilted his head and said aloud:

“You truly are a lucky people, having a mayor as wonderous as you do.”

“Sir?”

Jaskier smiled sadly. “I am but a simple bard who gets himself into far more trouble than he’s worth. He has no need to care for me so thoroughly.”

“Oh I see, t’was not the mayor who paid for your treatment.”

Jaskier’s head snapped to Odar and he regretted it immediately when his neck twinged. “Then who?”

The doctor looked at his assistant, as if in debate, before he shrugged.

“It was the witcher who has been in town.”

A numbness spread through Jaskier’s body that had naught to do with the salve. His gaze fell from the doctor closing his satchel on the dresser to the coin purse that lay next to it. Geralt had spent what little, hard-earned money he had to have Jaskier petted and polished even after he’d already given him the potion. He shook his head. If Geralt were concerned enough about him to do such a thing, his mind thought jealously, then why hadn’t he checked on him himself?

Unless of course Geralt was staying away from him, as Jaskier had drunkenly requested the night of the werewolf attack? Jaskier rejected such a thought outright. Everything was changed now, surely Geralt knew that? And if he didn’t, well, then in the witcher’s mind, he still wanted nothing to do with the bard and shouldn’t care about his wellbeing.

He hung his head between his shoulders. “Why is he doing this to me?” He asked the floor quietly.

“Master bard?”

Jaskier looked up to see the pair of them staring at him with a mixture of concern and confusion.

“Where is he?” Was all Jaskier asked.

“The witcher?” Odar asked as if there had been no break in conversation. Which, of course, there hadn’t been. “Do you wish to see him?”

It was one of those questions Destiny was using a human vessel to ask him.

“Yes, I want to see him.” He replied.

“Then I suggest you hurry, young sir, he’s leaving town tonight.”

_You could let him leave?_ His brain suggested, but he was already out of the door.

…

It was approaching nightfall and Geralt sighed to himself as he trudged up the stairs and back to his room at the inn. By all rights, he should have been on Roach’s back and out of this town by now. In fact, the mare waited for him in the stables below and he’d been ready to mount her when he’d realised that he’d left his water skin by the bed. This was what happened when he was constantly distracted by human aches of the mind, either that or Destiny were conniving some fucked up trick to keep him in Tarrin longer than necessary.

He was quite saddened to leave the bed behind, even if he had not slept in it. His leg and his chest still plagued him and his mind was in disarray, but he could not stay in Tarrin a second longer to fix either. He just had to hope Jaskier would be okay, which was easier now he knew he’d been attended to by a physician.

He tried to convince himself that was all he was concerned about, but try as he might, his fevered mind kept returning to the kiss they had shared. Every time he tried to close his eyes, he no longer saw violet eyes, instead he felt the hard but yielding press of the bard’s lips against his own, and even when he opened them, the fires ignited on his lips did not leave him.

He was unsure what had possessed Jaskier to behave in such a way. He hoped he had just been scared or grateful and was repaying the witcher with the virility his male body was used to. But that didn’t explain why Geralt couldn’t stop thinking about it. And it didn’t explain why it made him feel the way he did. It was as if, after years of gloom, light had illuminated, not something new, but something that had always been there.

He could not remember being attracted to Jaskier in the past, but other things crept from his memory. How he’d unconsciously assumed the bard fell in love with him anew each time he saw him, and how, in the midst of the werewolf attack, he had recklessly rushed in to save his mate. _Mate_. That’s what his primal, animal brain had chosen. Not cub, not even friend, _mate_. Who was the witcher to argue with his most instinctive, unvarnished self?

He let out a quiet hum, unsure why he was torturing himself with such thoughts. Regardless of his own turmoil, the bard still hated him and had ordered him away, as everyone eventually did, and the chances were he’d never see him again.

He found the water skin on the bed and picked it up, turned on his heel to leave the room when a knock on the door startled him.

He sighed, ready to tell the innkeeper he was merely returning to collect his property, when he opened the door and saw that Jaskier stood before him.

The cuts adorning his face looked cleaned, his bruises had mellowed from a startling blue to a lighter yellow, and the red swelling in his skin was practically non-existent. He held his arms stiffly as if they still grieved him and his wrists were wrapped in soft white bandages. He was wearing nothing but dark trousers, boots and the plain white shirt Geralt himself had procured for him. That detail stuck in the witcher’s throat. He was tidy and clean-shaven for the first time since Geralt had seen him and he looked more like himself, but his eyes were guarded and his expression harrowed.

Geralt knew there was only one person who had taken that relentless sunshine from the bard’s eyes, and it was the idiot who had tossed him away like he was nothing, the one who was stood dumbly staring and holding a water skin.

Geralt stood stiffly aside to allow Jaskier entrance, and the bard wasted no time in crossing to the bed. Geralt closed the door quietly and turned to look at him. Jaskier’s ever-fidgeting hands were grasping at one of the bed knobs as if he were trying to build himself up to speak.

“You…I…I came to say that you, you shouldn’t have done that.” Jaskier stammered. “You shouldn’t have paid that doctor to come and see me. I’m fine and, err, it’s not your responsibility to protect me.” He winced at himself as if ‘protect’ had been the wrong choice of verb.

Geralt’s mouth settled into a thin line. “He was not supposed to reveal the origin of the coin.”

Jaskier’s eyes widened. “Well, that’s worse, Geralt! You make little enough as it is, and to spend it on me is…”

Geralt shook his head. This was precisely why he’d tried to keep it a secret, because he knew he would offend the bard. How could Jaskier ever trust him again if he broke the only command he’d ever given him? To stay away. If he broke it, it would mean that Jaskier was not safe from him, it would mean he might start to fear him, which would break Geralt more than all the hatred in the world.

“Don’t worry.” The witcher interrupted him. “I’m leaving town, and you’ll never have to see me again.”

Not a second past before Jaskier burst into tears. His face collapsed and fat dollops of moisture rolled from his brimming eyes before his hands were covering the devastation on his face from Geralt’s view.

Surprise rocked through Geralt. Never before had he seen Jaskier display such open and vulnerable pain, even after all they’d been through. It was so human, but it was also extremely intimate.

He risked a step closer to Jaskier, holding his hands out in front of himself in an unpractised show of solidarity.

“Jaskier,” he tried quietly, powerless to do anything but watch as the bard sobbed into his hands like a child. “What’s wrong?”

Jaskier looked up at him, his eyes sopping, and anger crossed his face. “You left me!”

Geralt’s eyes wavered. Of all the disagreeable things he’d done to him over the last few days, surely leaving him was not one of them?

“But I…”

“Not here!” Jaskier spat hysterically. His breath was coming out in short bursts as he tried in vain to control the tirade of emotion overcoming him. “On the mountain! You left me, you pushed me away when all I ever did was…” He paused and looked away before shaking his head in resignation and finishing quietly: “when all I ever did was love you.”

And somewhere deep down, Geralt knew. He knew Jaskier loved him. He knew he’d taken him for granted because he thought he’d never leave him. He’d regretted his words on the mountain as soon as they’d left his mouth, but he’d never realised it would be one of the biggest mistakes he’d ever made. Or maybe the biggest mistake he’d ever made was thinking that it had been loss of Yennefer that had grieved him for the past year.

“I shouldn’t have said those things.” He tried to explain. “She left and I was hurt…”

Jaskier was still crying, but it had dissolved from sobbing into tears streaming unaided down the already-made tracks on his face from his wide, open eyes. Somehow, that was worse. “You think _you’re_ hurting?” He interrupted incredulously, caring not a jot for Geralt’s attempted apology. “I gave you my whole life, and you took it from me! You think you’re the only one to have fucking lost?” He laughed then and it sounded wrong. “Have you ever even seen me, Geralt? The poor human whose pitiful emotions aren’t important enough to care about?”

“That’s not fair.”

“You want to talk about what’s not fair? It’s not fair how much I love you. It’s not fair that I want to be angry with you, I want to hate you, to push you away to protect myself but I can’t.” His voice broke on the last word. “I have but a short time on this earth, witcher, and I gifted that to you.” His voice had devolved into something soft and broken. “Because I’m human and that’s all I have. Decades of my life filled with your presence, your voice, your scent then…silence. The things I did for you, things I gave to you, are not things I can reclaim and give to another, they’re now simply things I lost when I lost you. What am I supposed to do?” His madly gesticulating hands flopped to his side, rustling the fabric of his shirt in desperation but with nothing left to say.

Geralt couldn’t reply.

Jaskier shook his head. “I don’t know why the fuck I came here.” He stared at Geralt with a pointed, wet look. “You don’t need to save me out of habit, Geralt. If this,” he gestured absentmindedly around himself, “happens again, ignore your instincts and for everyone’s benefit, including mine, let me die.”

Jaskier walked past him to the door, avoiding brushing against him as he did so and Geralt realised he had broken Jaskier. He had made him feel like a lost cause. But the truth was that Geralt had been numb and sleepless, going through the motions of his life for the past year, and saving Jaskier from the werewolf, the mage and making sure he was safe and unharmed and protected, had been his only causes since.

Part of him, the noble part, wanted to let him walk away and give him a chance to find what he deserved. But the only thing worse than knowing he had caused Jaskier’s misery was to be bereft of him and to spend another moment ignoring the gaping hole inside himself when he’d only just realised what had left it there.

“I wasn’t acting out of instinct, I was scared.”

He heard Jaskier still at the door. The witcher turned and saw the bard with one hand on the door knob and his face turned back and staring at him. “What did you say?”

Geralt took a hesitant step towards him and closed the distance between them. Jaskier’s hand fell unconsciously from the knob.

“When that woman told me they had you and I saw you, broken and bloodied, I was scared.” His brow furrowed as if the memory brought him pain. “Scared that they were going to rob the world of you and rob me of you. Everything else…fell away.”

“I thought witcher’s couldn’t get scared.” Jaskier said quietly, but Geralt recognised the inflection in his voice. Jaskier knew he felt, he was merely surprised he had admitted it out loud.

Geralt could scarce look at him, instead his eyes settled on the pale buttons of his shirt. “I’m…sorry.” He admitted. “That this happened to you, that I happened to you. I never wanted to lose you, even though I knew I would. I pushed you away before you realised you hated me all on your own, because I couldn’t…”

“Geralt.” The word was breathed, not spoken. Still Geralt couldn’t look at him. He wanted to tell Jaskier of his mother abandoning him on the side of the road, he wanted to tell him of Kaer Morhen and of the punishments and mutations handed out for failure. He wanted to tell him of Yennefer and his child surprise being linked to him by nothing but destiny and magic – and then there was Jaskier. The only one who had chosen him all on his own. Who wanted naught from him, who aided him for no reward, who stood beside him for no reasons other than his own, who turned to him when the entire world turned away. But he couldn’t. The word’s _wouldn’t come out._

Jaskier stared at Geralt’s bowed head and could just make out the crease in his forehead and the emotional turmoil in his glassy eyes. He closed the space between them and boldly put his hand comfortingly on Geralt’s neck and eased his face up to look at him. Geralt made an unexpected noise of such deep yearning at being touched that it _broke_ Jaskier.

Only when their eyes found each other did he say: “you never lost me, my love.”

An incredible warmth and validation surged uncontrollably through the witcher that he had never felt before, and yet Geralt’s eyebrows flexed. “But you…”

“You think I’m this hurt because I don’t care about you? I love you, Geralt. You broke my heart, but it’s only yours to break, that won’t ever change.”

Geralt held his gaze despairingly, his hands clenching uselessly by his sides. “I want to give back every second I took from you.” He tried to explain. “But the thought of you sharing them with another is wretched. Everything I want for you I am powerless to provide. What does that mean?”

Jaskier smiled shallowly and the tear tracks on his face glistened. Geralt thought he looked beautiful. “I think it means you love me.”

“I want to love you, but I don’t know if I can.”

Jaskier’s eyes closed and let his forehead rest against the witcher’s. “You’re doing okay so far.”

Geralt laughed shakily as he allowed himself to be held, unsure how to react to such foreign treatment. “Is this what it feels like? Anger and pain and fear?”

“That’s been my experience.”

Geralt pulled his head back but Jaskier didn’t release his neck. He enclosed his hand around the bard’s bandaged wrist lightly, but not to move him, just to hold him. “Then why did you do it?” He asked seriously. “Why did you stay with me all those years if it hurt so much?

“Because it doesn’t just hurt, Geralt.”

“Like when?”

“Like now.” Jaskier replied softly, twisting his hand from Geralt’s neck and grasping the wrist of the witcher’s hand that held his.

Geralt felt the bard’s quick heartbeat under his fingers and wondered if Jaskier could feel his, too, or if it was too slow. He could hardly believe he were awake in this moment, with his bard safe and warm in his arms. If Geralt had to pick but a moment to justify, to excuse, his lifetime of suffering, it would be this one.

He gave the bard’s arm the lightest of tugs and Jaskier stumbled forward and squeaked before Geralt silenced him with a kiss. His free hand secured around Jaskier’s neck, feeling his hair tumbling through his fingers and held him close as he pressed his lips hungrily to Jaskier’s and reclaimed that heat he’d been missing like oxygen.

Jaskier moaned softly and kissed him back immediately, his hand wrapping around the witcher’s neck and holding him like a vice. Jaskier parted his lips and captured Geralt’s bottom lip in a cocoon of wet heat and the witcher groaned. He kissed back hungrily, ferociously, years of pent up emotion coming out unexpectedly. The muscles of his jaw parted the bard’s mouth until his tongue was slipping inside the warm, wet crevice and the noise Jaskier let out was obscene. The scent of heat and lust _reeking_ from the bard washed over Geralt like an opiate and his eyelids fluttered.

Then hands were on his chest, pushing him softly but firmly away. Their mouths disconnected and Geralt felt cold and empty without Jaskier pressed against him in every conceivable way. All he wanted was to surge forward and kiss him again but the look in Jaskier’s eyes stopped him.

“Geralt, wait,” the bard all but whispered, his lips tinged pink and glistening, his hot breath ghosting over Geralt’s waiting mouth. “I can’t do this, not, not like this. I want this, I want you, but I need to know what you want, that you won’t leave me again.”

Geralt’s mouth bared into a snarl and his hands moved from Jaskier’s neck to his waist, yanking him tight against his body so he couldn’t escape him if he tried. Jaskier squeaked and Geralt groaned as he felt the hot, heavy press of the bard’s body against his own.

“I want you by my side for the rest of my days.” The witcher growled into his ear before pressing soft, wet kisses to his neck and licking a marking stripe along his pulse point. “I want to protect you from harm, I want to be the only cause of your sorrow and all your joy.” He whispered against Jaskier’s pulsing heartbeat.

“Geralt,” Jaskier said admonishingly, but his hands were in Geralt’s hair, “you can’t mean that.”

Geralt met his gaze again. “You heard silence when we were parted, I heard lute music.”

Jaskier’s mouth crashed back into his own, as if he physically could not hold back any longer. The added pressure of their bodies pressed against one another intensified the kiss somehow and it was better than before. Harder, hungrier. Geralt let his hands roam the unexplored planes of Jaskier’s body and moaned softly when he felt the bard’s own nimble hands tracing the muscles of his back. He pulled back, nose pressing against Jaskier’s, and his golden eyes found blue.

“Come to bed with me.” He said, voice low and rough.

Jaskier hesitated in Geralt’s arms. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he could scarce believe that what he wanted was happening and that one wrong move from him would ruin everything.

Realising this, Geralt took Jaskier’s shaking hands in his own and lead them backwards, eyes never leaving his, until he felt the backs of his thighs hit the bedframe.

Geralt sat down on the edge of the bed and attempted to pull the bard on top of him, but Jaskier pulled back and leant over him.

“Please.” He muttered into Geralt’s neck. “I’ve wanted nothing but this since we met.”

Before Geralt could say anything, Jaskier had sunk onto his knees between the witcher’s legs and his hands had found the buttons of his breeches.

Geralt’s head fell backwards as his trousers were pulled down below his knees, and the hot wet breath of Jaskier’s baying mouth was ghosting over his bare crotch.

“Jaskier.” He looked down to see the bard staring at his cock. It was flushed red with blood, standing taut and curving up towards his stomach as it always did when he was aroused. Geralt knew he was big, and he knew he’d frightened more than one whore in the past before they realised he wasn’t exactly a cruel lover. But Jaskier didn’t particularly looked worried, he was just looking. If anything, his mouth was open.

“You’re very big.” He said quietly, allowing his hand to wrap around the base of Geralt’s cock. The witcher bit back a groan. It was the first time he’d had a hand on himself that wasn’t his in many months.

He’d slept with men before, but the number was incomparable to the amount of women, and not recently and the rough, strong grip of Jaskier’s hand was different to the gentle caresses of a woman’s. Jaskier drew his hand up to the head of Geralt’s cock and back down again, slowly retracting the witcher’s foreskin and revealing vulnerable pink crown. The lute callouses on his fingertips teased his swollen cock head in deft, exploratory strokes and Geralt groaned, a hand finding Jaskier’s bicep and gripping.

Jaskier’s mouth widened to a grin. “Is someone sensitive?” He asked rhetorically.

Geralt glared at him and Jaskier responded by drawing his finger lightly over his head, circling the glistening slit with delicate strokes. Geralt’s thighs clenched and his hand on Jaskier’s arm tightened.

“I’m going to take that as a yes.” He said, before squeezing Geralt’s cockhead between his thumb and forefinger, puckering his slit and forcing a few globs of pearly white precome out, before bowing his head and probing the tip of his tongue into the ready-made opening.

Geralt arched off of the bed and almost sent the bard tumbling backwards but Jaskier’s arms found his thighs and held firm as his mouth suckled around Geralt’s cockhead, tongue licking into his slit appreciatively. Geralt shook, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as Jaskier bobbed his head and the warm, wet heat spread over the most vulnerable and sensitive part of his body. His entire crotch felt like it was on fire, sending sparks of pleasure and arousal through him. His hands instinctively tangled in Jaskier’s hair and tugged.

The bard moaned low at that before he was pulling off of the witcher’s cock, freeing his tongue, and sinking back down again, taking as much of him into his mouth as he could manage. His eyes fluttered closed, brow furrowed in intense concentration as spittle dribbled from the corners of his lips and he slurped greedily on the witcher’s cock. He looked like a man lost in the desert drinking his first pail of water in days.

Geralt watched the healing scab on Jaskier’s cheek move and retract as he sucked is cock, and momentarily worried that it might split under the effort, but all worry was forgotten when he felt the hot, wet drag of Jaskier’s tongue up the underside of his cock until the tip was fluttering over the exposed glans of his head and then he was sinking back down again. The crown of his Geralt’s cock pressed unforgivingly against the ridges of the roof of Jaskier’s mouth and his thighs quaked.

“Shit, Jaskier, stop or I’m…”

The bard pulled off of him slowly until Geralt’s cock flopped, red and glistening, from his mouth and Jaskier stared up at him with drunk, satiated eyes.

Geralt dragged Jaskier up and met his mouth in a kiss, rolling them back until they were sideways on the bed. Jaskier wrapped his arms around Geralt’s neck and Geralt practically ripped the white shirt from his body. The bard moaned softly, but not in pleasure, and Geralt paused.

“What’s wrong?” He asked immediately.

Jaskier was blushing, a soft smile on his face, as his hands curled around his bare shoulders. “Nothing, it’s fine, just, you know, my arms…”

Geralt stared at him. “Are you in pain?”

“No! Just when I use them too much.”

“Do you want to stop?”

“Please don’t.”

Geralt nodded, already avoiding his shoulders and running his hands over his bare chest, feeling the soft chest hair beneath his fingers. He teased the erect peaks of his nipples, marvelling at the shiver that erupted through him. Geralt’s tongue wetted his lips before he ducked down and suckled his nipple in his mouth. Jaskier let out a desperate little moan and his hands tightened in Geralt’s hair. Geralt’s cock hardened impossibly further and he lapped over the uneven ridges of the sensitive nub.

“Oh, Geralt.” Jaskier sighed, unconsciously rubbing his clothed crotch against Geralt’s bare thigh to get any sort of stimulation. Geralt wrapped his hands around Jaskier’s torso, feeling the ribs under his fingers, and squeezed.

“Oh, fuck.” Jaskier choked out.

“You like that?” Geralt muttered against his skin. “You like that I can break you?”

“Already broken me.” Jaskier whined, rubbing his cock harder against the witcher. “Yours, Geralt, fuck…”

“Get your trousers off, now.”

Jaskier’s arms left his neck and went to his breeches, undoing the buttons and kicking them off to the floor.

Geralt pushed himself up onto his elbows, relieving himself of his own shirt and reaching for Jaskier again, trying to pull the bard close to him but Jaskier placed one hand on the bed as their naked legs entangled and stilled him.

“What’s wrong?” Geralt asked.

Jaskier traced his hand over the bruise spread across Geralt’s sternum. “I don’t want to hurt you.” He said, but Geralt pulled him close, his chest ached no more.

Apparently satisfied his witcher wasn’t in any pain, Jaskier became surer of himself. He wasn’t constantly fleeing from lords’ and ladies’ bedchambers for no reason. He hooked a knee over Geralt’s waist and sat back in his lap, bending down and recapturing his mouth.

Geralt hummed appreciatively in the kiss, but he wanted Jaskier on his back. He wanted to own the bard, to show him exactly who he belonged to, but at the same time he was also acutely aware of his hunched shoulders and knew the only place for them was relaxed in the blankets.

Geralt groaned as Jaskier’s stiff cock lined up with his own and the bard rutted his knees, rubbing their exposed lengths together and exhaling sharply into the witcher’s mouth. Geralt grabbed his hips and rubbed against him more insistently. Jaskier gasped, his thighs clamping around Geralt’s waist before his hands were on the witcher’s chest, avoiding his bruise, pushing him into the bed.

Geralt stared up at his blown-wide eyes and kiss-bitten lips.

“Geralt,” Jaskier said softly, “I want you to fuck me.”

Geralt swallowed, the bob from his adam’s apple noticeable, before his hands ran up the expanse of Jaskier’s back and Jaskier shivered, then he was being flipped onto his back.

“Geralt!” He exclaimed, a laugh escaping him as his head hit the pillow, but Geralt was already across the room and rummaging around in one of the drawers of the cabinet.

Jaskier, breathing heavily, rolled into his side and propped his head up on his hand, content with just watching the witcher for a moment. _His_ witcher. The lithe muscles in his back rippled as he stretched over the cabinet, leading down to the strong, round globes of his lovely bottom and the thick trunks of his thighs. His pale skin shone under the candlelight, skewered with scars both small and large. There were new scars there now, ones Jaskier had not seen before and he longed to trace them beneath his fingertips and listen to the heroic tale behind each one and how Geralt had survived, each and every time, and come back to him.

“You might just be the most spectacular man I’ve ever seen.” He said aloud.

Geralt turned back to him with a raised eyebrow but noticeable red in his cheeks. “I’m no man.” He reminded him.

“Witcher.” Jaskier corrected himself as Geralt sat back down on the bed and Jaskier pushed himself up into a sitting position and grasped Geralt’s neck. “Whatever you are, you’re _mine_.”

Jaskier kissed him possessively and the witcher hummed into his mouth, his broad tongue just teasing the crease of Jaskier’s lips. When he pulled away, Jaskier was panting and Geralt had a smirk on his face.

“Geralt.” Jaskier whined, his eyes bambi-wide and pleading.

“I thought you wanted me to fuck you?”

But Jaskier was not done with him yet. Then they were kissing again and this time, Geralt didn’t hold back. He pressed his tongue into the bard’s mouth, immediately meeting the strong pressure of Jaskier’s own as he kissed him back and wrapped his arms tighter around Geralt’s neck, pressing his chest against Geralt’s until the witcher had to put a hand behind himself to stop them toppling back. It was as if Jaskier physically could not get close enough to him. Geralt’s head swam with it all, the heat, the need, the _scent_ coming off of him. Frankly, he felt it was an insult to his intelligence that he hadn’t noticed the bard’s desire for him before. But people see what they want to see, Geralt knew that more than most, and what he’d wanted before was Jaskier to fall in love with someone who was good for him. Unfortunately Jaskier, annoying little shit that he was, had chosen him and Geralt could do naught but submit to the responsibility of becoming that person that Jaskier deserved.

Jaskier pulled away from the kiss but his hands were still tight around Geralt’s neck. “Okay, okay, okay.” He said, but he kissed him again between every word. “Okay,” he kissed him again, “you can go now.”

Geralt smiled as he pressed a long, lingering kiss to the bard’s lips, distracting him as he slowly drew his arms from around his neck and laid him on his back. Jaskier stared up at him with hooded eyes and a noticeable rise and fall of his chest.

Geralt got up on his knees and reached for the vial of oil he had retrieved from the cabinet while Jaskier wrapped his legs around the witcher’s waist, tightening the balls of his feet into his back and revealing his swollen dick and pink, puckered hole to the witcher’s mercy.

Geralt stared at the fluttering ring of muscle for a moment and imagined sinking inside Jaskier, his friend, his companion, his _life partner_ he supposed. The thought was intrusive and welcome at the same time.

“Everything okay?” Jaskier asked.

Geralt nodded. “Everything will change after this.” He said regardless.

“I suppose.” Jaskier frowned minutely. “Is that okay?”

“Of course it’s okay. I just don’t want to end anything else.”

Jaskier’s hand found his cheek, Geralt could feel the scrapes on his palms against his rough stubble. “The only thing that’s going to change for me is that whenever I want to tell you I love you, I won’t have to bite it back anymore.”

Geralt smiled instinctively.

“You’re beautiful when you smile.”

Encouraged, and feeling better, Geralt uncorked the vial and soaked his hand in oil before he let some dribble onto Jaskier’s puckered entrance.

Jaskier shuddered and Geralt watched as his hole fluttered and contracted, swallowing some of the oil inside.

“That’s cold.”

“Shit, sorry, I should have…”

“No, no, it’s fine. I’m sure it’ll warm up in a minute.” He had a smirk on his face. Sometimes Geralt forgot what a smooth little bastard Jaskier was. But he’d never been on the receiving end of those soft words and seductive glances before. Instinctively, he wanted to roll his eyes but on a deeper level, he suddenly had more comprehension of why Jaskier was so successful with his romantic pursuits.

Geralt stroked his index finger over the ring of muscle until it was quivering and glistening with oil. He looked at Jaskier who was biting his lip.

“Can I finger you?” He asked quietly. Jaskier just nodded.

Without warning, Geralt sunk the tip of his finger into Jaskier’s hole and the bard shivered and let out a low moan. Geralt felt the muscles of his ass tighten and contract around the intrusion and his cock bobbed against the cleft of Jaskier’s ass. All he wanted was to see the crown of his cock disappearing into that glistening opening there just for him.

“ _Gods, Geralt_.”

Geralt ran a hand over Jaskier’s thigh as he eased his finger in up to the knuckle. Jaskier groaned. “Fuck, you’ve got big hands.”

Geralt bit back a grin. “Are you uncomfortable?”

“No.” Jaskier said through gritted teeth, his head thrown back against the pillow. “I’m _wanting_ , you fool, give me another, _now_.”

Geralt raised an eyebrow and sunk a second finger in alongside the first without pause. The groan Jaskier let out was obscene and his body shook. “Fuck, fuck, Geralt, yes, gods, _yes_.” He babbled, eyes closed as his asshole tightened around the witcher’s thick fingers. “Gods, you have no idea how long I’ve wanted this.”

Geralt eased his fingers out an inch before sinking them back in, enjoying the way Jaskier twitched with each penetrative thrust.

“Tell me.” He said softly.

Jaskier’s eyes were still closed, his cheeks red, as Geralt shifted his fingers imperceptibly deeper, searching for that bundle of nerves inside every man he knew would drive Jaskier wild.

“Posada!” The bard choked out. “When I saw you across the inn, _guh_ , I imagined you holding me up against the stable wall outside, _ah, oh, fuck_ , clinging to your big strong arms as you wrecked my asshole and _oh, gods, right there!”_

Geralt’s breath hitched as he applied unforgiving pressure to the same spot and watched as Jaskier’s mouth fell open and his back arched off of the bed.

“You wanted me in Posada?”

“ _Yes_.” Jaskier whined as Geralt stroked his fingers back and forth inside him, the room filled with the obscene squelching of Geralt’s quickening hand and Jaskier’s eyes rolled back into his head.

“Why didn’t you say?”

“I _tried_ to flirt with you, and you told me to go away!”

“You said you had bread in your pants.”

“That’s flirting, Geralt!”

“Hmm.” Geralt drove his fingers in again, hard, and Jaskier shrieked.

“Oh, gods above, please, Geralt, fuck me!”

“Your flirting has definitely got more direct.”

Jaskier glared at him. “Now. Or so help me I’ll sit on your cock myself.”

Geralt’s pupils dilated and he withdrew his fingers, leaving Jaskier’s hole gaping, just begging to have a cock shoved into it. He climbed off the end of the bed, feeling the blood rush back to his legs, and curled his hands around Jaskier’s thighs and dragged him to the end of the bed until his ass was flush with Geralt’s hips.

Geralt’s cock, red and throbbing, lay thick and heavy next to the bard’s own. Geralt took it in his hand and rubbed the engorged crown over the bard’s distended red hole. A noise caught in Jaskier’s throat. “Someone sensitive?” The witcher teased. Jaskier mewled and Geralt took pity on him and watched as his cockhead sunk into the waiting hole. Jaskier clamped down around him, swallowing him greedily as a content sigh erupted from his mouth.

Geralt waited a moment before he eased the rest of his length into Jaskier, surprised when Jaskier swallowed his entire cock. But the bard was quivering and his voice was choked. “Fuck, Geralt, you’re so big, I can’t…”

“Do you want me to pull out?”

“ _No_.” Jaskier’s forehead was creased, his eyes closed, his ass contracting wildly around Geralt’s cock. His legs were shaking and Geralt wrapped his hands under his knees, holding him steady as he eased out an inch or so then sunk all the way back in. Jaskier didn’t move except for his hands covering his eyes as his mouth fell open. The pure pleasure wafting from him was telling enough for Geralt to continue.

Geralt held his legs tighter against his own chest until the bard’s knees were practically under his armpits and thrust in again.

“ _Uh_.” Jaskier let out, his hands falling away from his face. His eyes met Geralt’s. His pupils were blown wide, lax and dancing. His face was flushed and he had a dizzy smile on his lips. “Oh, _Geralt_.” He moaned, as if incapable of saying anything other than his name.

Geralt kept up his slow pace for as long as he could, watching his massive cock being swallowed by Jaskier’s tiny hole over and over again, but soon the pressure around his cock was too much, the look of ecstasy on Jaskier’s face too overpowering and he was fucking hard and fast into Jaskier until his poor red hole was barely closing between his thrusts.

The string of words falling helplessly from Jaskier’s mouth had long since lost any meaning, but his hand migrated from where it was clenching in the blankets and wrapped around his own cock.

Geralt let go of one of Jaskier’s legs and it immediately flopped around his waist, before his hand intercepted Jaskier’s bandaged wrist as gently as possible and drew it from his cock. Jaskier’s eyes burst open and he whined, staring up at Geralt with heady confusion in his eyes as his fingers twitched reflexively trying to grasp himself.

“You’re coming on my cock, or not at all.” Geralt growled.

Jaskier breathed heavily and Geralt let go of his hand. He didn’t grab his dick again, instead, he let his hand rest on his own pelvic bone beside his red cock flopping uselessly between his legs.

Geralt grabbed his leg again and held him tight as he fucked into him with renewed vigour. Jaskier gasped, hand immediately going for his cock but he stopped it, flexing his fingers wildly as it looked like it took every ounce of his control to obey Geralt. The witcher growled loudly because _fuck_ , seeing Jaskier doing as Geralt said, giving himself to him entirely, was the hottest fucking thing he’d ever seen.

He hiked the bard’s legs higher, pulling his ass off of the bed completely until only his shoulders remained on the bed. He wrapped his hands around Jaskier’s ankles, holding his entire body weight up as he thrust into him, the new angle exposing the bard’s prostate to Geralt’s onslaught. Geralt slammed into him and the pitch of Jaskier’s moans changed. A high shriek escaped him and Geralt watched as his cock twitched violently and shot thick spurts of come that dribbled down his own stomach and pooled at his chest. His ass clamped down over Geralt’s cock as he came and the witcher’s eyes rolled back into his head. He was certain he would have come if he possessed a man’s stamina, but instead he thrust into Jaskier’s quivering asshole, savouring the tightening sensation for as long as he could before Jaskier pulled completely off his dick and rolled onto his side, his legs clutched together as they shook violently and he rode out the intense waves of orgasm as they coursed through his body. All Geralt could do was watch in rapture, wondering what god had seen fit to allow such a beautiful creature into his life.

Jaskier’s body stopped shaking, but he was still breathing heavily and before he could calm, Geralt rolled him onto his front, shoving him further up the bed one handed and climbing onto his knees on the end of the bed and sliding right back inside him.

Jaskier wailed, his knees digging into the bed as his feet stuck in the air and his toes curled as he tried to adjust to the sudden, unexpected intrusion in his used hole.

Geralt held his calves and wrenched his legs apart as he drew his hips back and fucked him open. Jaskier was groaning continuously into the bed as he shook and came apart under the oversensitive pleasure.

All Geralt wanted to do was make Jaskier come, again and again, and fill every nerve in his body with such pleasure that he would forget all the pain and harm Geralt had ever caused him.

Geralt fucked him into the bed, shoving his cock repeatedly into the red ring of muscle and Jaskier’s hands curled into the blankets in a desperate attempt to hold onto something. Every penetrative thrust sent his body jolting forward, rubbing his swollen, spent cock into the blanket he was pressed into with ceaseless pressure and it wasn’t long before he was coming again, biting the blanket hard to stifle the loud groan ripped from him as he shook beneath Geralt and came on the stiff cock spearing him open.

Geralt stilled and ran his hands up Jaskier’s back. He was soaked in sweat and heat prickled on his skin. His back was rising and falling as he breathed heavily and his face was still buried into the pillow and groaning softly as the spasms subsided from his body.

Geralt held him like that for a long time until he sat back, wrapping his fingers around the small part of his cock that wasn’t still buried in Jaskier, and pulled out. He watched as the crown of his cock popped out of the bard’s puffy hole, smeared white with precome, and Jaskier’s hole fluttered but didn’t close much. The sight had Geralt salivating and he pumped his own cock instinctively. There was no way he was done with that overused, sensitive hole yet.

Jaskier rolled into his side, revealing his cum-splattered, limp dick twitching against his abdomen and his beautiful heady eyes with pupils blown so wide Geralt could barely make out the blue of his irises.

On his side, Jaskier’s legs were lying on top of each other and Geralt ran his hand over the flank of the one on top. Jaskier let out a small mewl of contentment and the witcher lifted it slowly, hooking the bard’s ankle over his shoulder so he was still lying on his side but was wide open and exposed to him, before slotting his fingers inside him. His loose, swollen hole accepted three all the way in and Geralt marvelled, entirely distracted, at the soft, stretched skin around his fingers.

“Geralt!” Jaskier’s voice was rough and panic crossed his face as his hands scrabbled for the wrist of Geralt’s hand inside him. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to make you come.”

Jaskier looked close to sobbing. “I can’t.”

“Jaskier.” Geralt said, holding Jaskier’s wrist gently above the bandage with his free hand, pulling it away from his fingers imbedded in him and entwining their fingers together. “Do you trust me?”

There was more to the question than just sex, and Jaskier knew that. Geralt was asking if Jaskier trusted him not to hurt him, to not ever hurt him again.

“I trust you.” He said, before lying back on the bed, still holding Geralt’s hand.

Geralt wasted no time before nailing his prostate, knowing exactly where it was now, and knowing exactly how hard to stroke it to get Jaskier mewling and shaking, which was exactly what Jaskier did. Geralt fingered him roughly, the skin of his ass and thighs vibrating under the speed of it, and Geralt could only imagine what it was doing to his ass.

Jaskier wailed, letting his head fall against the pillow, with nothing to do but take it. Geralt’s hand sped up still, until Jaskier’s entire body was thrumming and Jaskier was moaning constantly, screaming really, prettier than any of his singing.

Geralt could smell his lust, and his impending orgasm, and then Jaskier was coming. His cock didn’t get hard but he splattered all over the bed, quite possibly more than before, as a long moan was drawn from his mouth.

Geralt gently released his leg and Jaskier stayed on his side, clutching himself and clamping his legs together in protection.

Like that could stop a witcher.

He gripped the underside of Jaskier’s bent knees one-handed and pushed his closed legs up to his chest, cock sliding between his cheeks and all the way inside him, his overused hole swallowing every inch like it was made for his cock. Because his legs were closed, it was an incredibly tight fit and Geralt’s cock felt like it was being suffocated. His thighs actually strained under the sensation.

“No, no, Geralt, please, no more.” Jaskier whimpered, voice weak. He was trying to bat the witcher away but his arms were loose and limp.

“One more.” Geralt said firmly.

Jaskier groaned despairingly. “Why?”

Geralt leant down, cock sliding impossibly deeper and drawing a moan from Jaskier until there was no air between them. “Because after this night, bard, you are mine, and only mine. You chose me and I’m giving you good fucking reason to never regret it.”

Jaskier groaned, his neck bowed, tendons sticking out against his skin as he tried to gulp down a breath and his legs twitched in pleasure.

“Oh, fuck, Geralt,” he moaned, “fuck, yes, gods, okay, let me just…” He was trying to move, to part his legs for the witcher, but Geralt’s hand tightened around the backs of his knees and pinned them more firmly to his chest.

“Oh no.” He said wickedly. “I’m keeping you like this. You’re going to feel every inch of my cock.”

The wave of lust that erupted from the bard was almost palpable and assaulted every one of the witcher’s senses. Jaskier had been the one who had fantasied about Geralt’s huge, hulking body destroying him. Who was Geralt to deny him anything?

“Fuck me, Geralt, please.” Jaskier said, but it didn’t sound like begging. His voice was low, his accent more pronounced, his eyes hooded and demanding. Geralt’s heart thumped in his chest as he did what was commanded of him.

He held Jaskier’s legs to his chest as he ploughed into him, ramming his abused prostate mercilessly. It was so godsdamned tight on his cock, and the mewling noises of overstimulation coming from Jaskier, was finally too much and Geralt knew he wouldn’t last much longer.

“Jas…” He’d never shortened his name before, but he couldn’t force anymore out. “I’m close.”

“Stay in me.” Jaskier begged.

Geralt obliged. Two short, sharp thrusts later and Geralt was spilling inside him. Jaskier’s breath hitched and a few pitiful dollops of come spewed from his cock as he came for the fourth time.

His eyes were hazy, completely fucked-out, and he fell limply against the bed.

Geralt blinked, momentarily worried he had fucked him unconscious, but after a moment, Jaskier shifted onto his back and pulled his hands to his sides.

Geralt gently let his legs down and pulled free of him. Jaskier’s hole was red and swollen; absolutely wrecked. Geralt couldn’t help pressing his fingers inside, feeling the sticky mess there. Jaskier whined, his hands grasping at his wrist and Geralt desisted and pulled out, his own come staining his fingers. He watched as a few creamy slithers followed his fingers out and collected on the gently pulsing ring of muscle.

“You realise what you’ve done.” Jaskier said with his eyes closed and a smile on his face. “You’ve ruined me for everyone else. You’re stuck with me now.”

“When haven’t I been?” Geralt asked, leaning down on his hands and kissing Jaskier’s neck. His blood was pounding through his veins there. Geralt had quickly learned he loved Jaskier’s neck and he couldn’t help staring at it. The way it was taut, pale and willowing with sinewy muscles straining under his breathing. Jaskier wasn’t just a human, he was a _man_ , and so much more than Geralt could ever hope to be.

Jaskier’s hand reached up, blindly fumbling for him and Geralt caught it.

“Get down here.” He said.

Geralt laid down carefully beside him and Jaskier wrapped Geralt’s own arm around his torso, pressing his back into Geralt’s chest and sighing happily. Geralt hesitated for a moment, he hadn’t held someone in a very long time and he’d forgotten what it felt like. But after a moment, his arm relaxed around Jaskier and he slotted his legs between his, breathing in the scent of sweat and the underlying tang of blood from his still-healing cuts.

“What do we do now?” Jaskier asked.

“We should leave town.” Geralt said. “Head south, it’s getting colder and we don’t want to be caught in that.” It didn’t even occur to him that he was saying ‘we’ and including Jaskier in all of his plans as if he were but an extension of himself. Jaskier didn’t correct him. Something popped into his head and he pressed a soft kiss to Jaskier’s neck. “We can go to the coast if you like, make up for lost time.”

Geralt couldn’t see Jaskier’s face, but he could hear the smile in his voice.

“No time is ever lost, dear heart.” Jaskier said sleepily before turning over and snuggling into Geralt’s chest. It wasn’t long before his breathing had evened out and he was asleep.

Geralt wished, most ardently, to stay awake and listen to the soft, even breathing of his bard, for he feared that if he closed his eyes for even a moment, Jaskier would slip away as all good dreams did. But he could fight it no longer. The witcher fell limply into repose, unguarded against the calm after the storm.

The end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! Was that about 4,000 words of pure sex scene? Yes, yes it was. I can only apologise.


End file.
